


Prends-Moi La Main

by ohmyflavors (hannibae)



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Alternate Universe - Genie/Djinn, Anal Sex, Bottom!Link, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 01:26:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7554796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannibae/pseuds/ohmyflavors
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhett shoots him a look, and then slaps a hand on the carpet below him. “Do you have a name so I can stop calling you Jackass in my head?”</p>
<p>“Charles Lincoln Neal III,” he says, and with a flourish of arms, he gives Rhett an exaggerated bow. “At your service.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prends-Moi La Main

**Author's Note:**

> this is for the rhinksummerficathon2k16. the prompt i used was the "emotions people feel but can't explain" prompt, and the emotion i chose was: [nodus tollens](http://heatgeneratingtechniques.tumblr.com/post/144783184069/the-signs-as-emotions-people-feel-but-cant)
> 
> i hope you enjoy!

 “I’m not sure what you really expected.”

The bottle shattering was _not_ expected. Rhett doesn’t think _he_ expected it either, if the way he’s pathetically trying to gather all the pieces together is of any indication. And, really, a fully grown adult man materializing in the middle of his living room wasn’t something he anticipated happening while he unpacked.

 Also, his heartbeat hasn’t slowed down, and he’s scared he’s going to have a heart attack or stroke out soon.

“Are you going to pass out? You look kind of pale,” the guy is telling him, and Rhett stares at him incredulously.

“Are you freaking kidding me?” he asks, because that’s all he thinks he’s capable of verbalizing at this point. “What just happened?”

“You rubbed the bottle,” he gets back, and the guy is shrugging his shoulders while he stands back up, pushing his glasses back in place.

He shakes his head, hands coming up to wipe at his face. “I can’t believe this.” He has to, though, because he watched it happen. One minute, he’s using a damp towel to wipe down some weird ‘family heirloom’ his mom shipped with him, and the next, he’s watching some weird guy pick glass out of his hair on his living room floor.

So really, if he doesn’t believe that this is actually happening, then the only other option is that he’s losing his mind, and his mental stability is questionable enough as it is.

“What the heck just happened?” he asks again, and the guy gives him a look, raises an eyebrow.

“You rubbed the bottle, man,” he tells Rhett, still looking at him. And then, after a pause, “Are you okay?”

“No!” Rhett yells, laughing hysterically. “What does that even mean, ‘You rubbed the bottle’? You’re trying to tell me you were _in_ the bottle?”

In return, the guy snaps his fingers, points at him, and says, “Bingo.”

“Get out of my house,” Rhett says, face going serious. “Or I’m going to call the police.”

 “I can’t leave until I grant you three wishes.” He says it so nonchalantly, picking at his cuticles.

The words ring in his head for a while, and he feels faint. They nestle into his skull and very quickly become a headache. This can’t be happening.

“Oh, it’s happening, buddyroll,” the guy says, and Rhett pulls his arm back, rears forward and decks him in the face as hard as he can.

__

“I can honestly say no one has ever punched me in the face before.”

Rhett is having a hard time believing that, but he’s too busy taping a bag of frozen tater tots to his fist to actually say it, so he just thinks it followed by a string of words he doesn’t use often.

He only feels a little bad. The guy went down hard, yelping out a, “Oh, gosh!” while he cradled his head in his hands. On one hand, it’s the first time Rhett’s ever punched anyone in the face. On the other hand, he’s pretty sure he just punched a _psychopath_ in the face.

He watches the guy press at his cheek with a shaky hand. And then his face lights up, like he just had the best idea ever. “Wait, I know how I can prove everything to you. Watch,” he says.

And Rhett watches.

He presses his fingers to the purplish bruise on his face again, dances them along the swollen seam of his eye, wincing when he gets up on the forehead, and Rhett’s eyes get wide as he watches the color fade. The swelling goes down, and the bridge of his nose sets back into place.

Now, he’s sure he’s going to faint.

“Here, I’ll do you, too,” he hears, but then everything goes black, and his knees give out underneath him.

__

The first thing he notices when he comes to is that the guy smells like peanut butter. It’s subtle, as though he would have put on some sort of weird peanut butter cologne or rolled around in a lot of it and then taken a shower.

The second thing he notices when he comes to is that his hand doesn’t hurt. He tries not to think about it, because when he does, his stomach lurches. But his hand doesn’t hurt anymore.

Somehow, the guy has managed to get Rhett to the living room, has him on his back, and he’s standing over him, with a look of complete annoyance on his face.

“Look,” he’s saying, hands going to his hips, “my house blew up all over your house, so I’m not too happy today either, but you can’t pass out or punch me in the face every time I do something, okay?”

“You,” Rhett is saying, and mentally berates himself for how shaky it comes out, “read my mind and then healed your _broken face_ just by touching it. You’re telling me people don’t react the way I did when you do stuff like that?”

“No. I have gotten shot before, though, so this hasn’t been too bad in comparison.” He lifts his shirt to show Rhett a scar right below his ribs. It’s big and dark, and Rhett doesn’t want to know the story.

“Jeez, man,” Rhett hisses. His chest hurts just looking at the size of it. It must have been a shotgun or something. “How’d you even survive something like that?”

Link waves him off, rolls his eyes. “That’s a story I’m not keen on telling any time soon. So, about those wishes.”

Rhett shoots him a look, and then slaps a hand on the carpet below him. “Do you have a name so I can stop calling you _Jackass_ in my head?”

“Charles Lincoln Neal III,” he says, and with a flourish of arms, he gives Rhett an exaggerated bow. “At your service.”

When he gets up, Rhett’s head sort of swims, and he feels like he might puke. All of the boxes in his living room look a lot more menacing now. He wonders vaguely if he has annoying, skinny, little boys living in _all_ of his furniture.

“Charles,” Rhett says, and then shakes his head. “You don’t look like a Charles.”

“I don’t look like a genie, either,” he says, shrugging his shoulders again. “I had a girl a long time ago who called me Link for short.”

Rhett nods his head, and then regrets it instantly. “Link suits you better. We’ll go with that.”

“You can call me Sasquatch for all I care,” Link tells him. “But seriously, three wishes.” He holds up three of his fingers and wiggles them around a little.

“Dude, you can’t rush this,” Rhett says, crossing his arms over his chest.

Link plops himself onto the futon with a sigh. “You know, usually I’m the one saying that. The one time I’ve got other things going on, the guy is actually smart.”

“Are there rules?” Rhett asks, because there are always rules and they’re always dumb. Not that Rhett wants all the money in the world or something silly like that, but it’s good to know the boundaries.

He half expects Link to pull out a book or a pamphlet or something. Instead, what he gets is another eye roll, and Link says, “Just don’t be a jerk.”

“That’s the rules? ‘Don’t be a jerk’?” Rhett deadpans, and Link nods his head, gives him a thumbs up. “You’re the worst genie.”

Link gives him a look, raises his eyebrows. “Five minutes ago you were punching me in the face because you didn’t think I was telling the truth. Now you’re knowledgeable enough to be able to compare me to other genies? Make up your mind, man.”

 Rhett decides to ignore him, walking back into the kitchen to dig for the Tylenol. It would be his luck that a genie would show up in his house and wind up being an asshole. He can feel a tension headache forming in his temples, so once he finds what he was digging for, he knocks three of them down dry and puts his hands on the counter. The clock in the corner is ticking a lot louder than it did back home, and he hangs his head between his shoulders.

This is going to be a long day.

__

The thing that they quickly discover is that Link can’t leave. Like, at all. As in, whenever he tries to step outside of the house, some invisible force just won’t let him. Rhett nearly passes out again, just watching the way Link’s body would smash against thin air.

“Usually, between wishes, I stay in my bottle. But, you know,” he says, pointing at the plastic container they scooped all the shards of glass into. “So just make your wishes, brother. I have things I have to figure out.”

“Dude,” Rhett argues, “I’m not just going to make three random wishes. They need to be smart. I need to think about them.”

“Okay, what part of ‘homeless’ aren’t you comprehending?” Link says, and wipes a hand over his face. “Wouldn’t you be itching to find another house if yours blew up all of a sudden?”

Rhett raises an eyebrow at him. The logic of all of this is a little skewed. He doesn’t really understand what’s happening, and that alone has him out of his comfort zone, if he’s being honest. He’s not used to now knowing stuff.

He’s also not used to having children’s fairy tales come to life in his living room, so he supposes anything is possible at this point.

Then, he has an idea. “What if I just bought you another bottle?”

“Not gonna work,” Link tells him. “It’s gotta be a magic bottle, for one. And I have to, like, _bond_ with it. There’s a guy in Haiti that should be able to help me. Provided I can leave this house once I grant your wishes, that’ll be my first stop. The problem is that if I’m outside of my bottle for too long once your contract is up, I lose my mojo. So if he can’t help me—“ and he shrugs his shoulders, leaves it open-ended. Rhett can infer the rest, though, and it doesn’t seem nice.

None of this makes sense.

Maybe he’s asleep. He’s going to wake up in a few seconds, laying in bed back home in North Carolina, and all of this will have been some elaborate dream that will haunt him for the rest of his life. That’s got to be it.

He’s got to just be lucid dreaming.

Laughing loudly, he claps his hands together and closes his eyes. If he’s lucid dreaming, he should be able to fly, so he envisions it, thinks hard about his feet coming off the ground. After a few seconds of not feeling anything, he peaks one eye open and looks down at himself.

“You aren’t going to pass out again, are you? I don’t handle blood well, so if you could warn me before anything happens so I can zap a pillow under your head or something, that would be great,” Link says, cutting him right out of his thoughts.

So this is real. This is really happening to him. He’s really got some homeless, jerk of a genie in his new house. Great.

“Can’t _you_ just fix your bottle? Use your freaky genie powers or whatever,” Rhett tells him.

Link puts his thumb and forefinger on his chin and hums. “You might be onto something.”

He sits back and watches while Link opens the lid of the container, puts the palm of one shaky hand hovering over the mess. He squints his eyes, uses his other hand to push his glasses up. The pieces of Link’s demolished bottle start to shake, and Rhett’s heart speeds in his chest. Link’s eyes go soft, and then—

Turns out Rhett isn’t onto anything. All that happens is the miserable pile of glass shards melts into a miserable pile of melted glass shards, and Link flicks Rhett in the ear on his way back into the living room.

“Ow, man!” Rhett whines. “Unnecessary.”

He rubs at the tender spot on his ear while Link plops himself down onto the couch. Rhett is all out of ideas at this point. And if the way Link is sighing out in frustration every twenty or so seconds is of any indication, he’s out of ideas as well.

“Got your three wishes figured out yet?” Link asks, and the sass is completely out of his voice, replaced with a pitiful sort of dejection.

Still, the question makes Rhett roll his eyes. “Coke?” he asks, getting up and heading towards the kitchen.

“Like, cocaine?” The question makes Rhett turn around suddenly, raise one eyebrow. “What?”

“Like, soda, dude,” he says, and shoots Link a look.

“You just said Coke!” Link balks, and Rhett almost laughs but doesn’t. “How was I supposed to know you meant a drink?”

“I don’t know,” Rhett laughs, “Try using your genie powers or whatever.”

Link rolls his eyes at him. “Oh, of course, I’ll try that next time.”

“You can read minds, but can’t figure out that I don’t do blow,” Rhett mutters, continuing his trek to the kitchen. He digs out two Dr. Peppers from his fridge, makes a mental note to take a trip to the store when he sees his meager collection of food.

And then, on an afterthought, he grabs the box of pizza sitting on the counter from lunch. There are still a few pieces left, and he always thinks better when he’s eating.

The thing is, he knows if he just makes three wishes, Link would be able to leave, but it doesn’t make him want to rush this chance of a lifetime. Honestly, what are the odds of him stumbling upon another genie somewhere? How many people get an opportunity to have a genie grant their wishes?

“Uh, about one in three-million.”

“Jeez!” Rhett jumps, dropping one of the cans he had precariously balanced on top of the other. “Would you quit doing that?”

“I can’t, man. It’s part of the whole genie thing,” Link tells him, biting at his nails.

He has a moment where he remembers the satisfaction of punching him in the face, but it fades once he remembers how bad he felt after.

“Don’t punch me again,” Link says, and Rhett considers it when he notices the cheeky grin on his face. Link holds his hands up in surrender. “Alright, alright, I’ll stop _answering_ , is that batter?”

He wants to say no, wants to say that it would be better if Link couldn’t read his mind at all, because it’s incredibly unnerving to not even be able to think things anymore. Not only does he have a freaking genie in his house, but his thoughts are compromised. This is so ridiculous.

Instead, he hands Link the can that dropped on the floor and watches him open it.

__

Link sleeps a lot.

Like, a scary amount.

And when he sleeps, his mouth is wide open, and Rhett always, _always_ has a split-second where he thinks Link might actually be dead. _Except genies can’t die, dude_ , Link told him the first time Rhett shook him frantically, just wanting to make sure he wasn’t about to have a corpse on his hands.

The good thing about it is that he’s an easy roommate. He eats mostly cereal, cleans up after himself pretty religiously, and sleeps more than anything else.

He’s always shirtless, though, not that Rhett really cares.

All in all, a couple of days in he’s almost grateful Link is around, if only because the house doesn’t feel empty like it did the first few nights he was here. He’s pretty sure it’s been a week since Link showed up already, and the realization is startling, if not a tiny bit comforting.

“So, I’m noticing a problem,” Link tells him one day.

“Is it that you never seem to be able to find clothes?” Rhett asks, raising an eyebrow at Link’s attire, which is just a pair of Rhett’s boxers.

Something in him flutters at the sight, and he tries very hard not to think about it and give Link some sort of idea.

Link scoffs. “It’s freaking hot today,” he says. “No, I’m noticing that you don’t actually _want_ anything.”

“What?”

“I have been wracking my brain—and yours for that matter—trying to figure out _something_ ,” he exasperates, throwing his hands up and pacing, “and there’s nothing!”

“Stay out of my mind, Link! We talked about this,” Rhett says, throwing a pillow at him.  

Link throws the pillow back, only he misses, and it hits the blinds instead. “You’re missing the point.”

With a sigh, Rhett reaches over to grab the pillow from where it landed, tossing it back on the couch where it belongs. “No, _you’re_ missing the point. I have to think about this, man, do some research and figure out stuff that’s actually gonna matter in the long run.”

Link narrows his eyes, sits down on the couch. When he crosses his arms over his chest, he really embodies a toddler, and Rhett almost laughs. He knows Link wants to go, and heck, _he_ wants Link to go, if only because the stress of having this all ride on him is driving him nuts.

_Fuck it,_ he thinks.

“Can I wish that my parents will be okay? Like, financially?” and Link’s head spins around, his eyes get wide, and Rhett swears he starts actually glowing. Rhett clears his throat. “I really want that.”

Link cocks his head to the side. His eyes get soft.

“You do, don’t you?” he says, and before Rhett can ask what he means by that, Link puts a hand on his forehead. “Okay,” he mutters.

For a split second, there’s warmth, and then freezing cold, rushing through him like a freight train. He’s never felt anything like it before, and even Link gasps, jerks back when his temperature goes back to normal.

“That was weird,” Rhett says, shaking the tension in his shoulders out just a little bit. It only lasted a second, but it’s left his fingers a little numb. “Is that normal?”

Link puts a hand to his mouth, drums the tips of his fingers over his lips and shakes his head. “No,” he mumbles.

Rhett raises an eyebrow. “Why are you being so weird all of a sudden?” He’s definitely panicking a little. Did something go wrong? Did Link mess up? Is Link actually an evil genie and Rhett didn’t know all this time?

Link shakes his head again, but his hand falls to his side, and Rhett can see a blush high up on his cheeks. “It’s, um,” he starts, and then lets out a nervous laugh. “It’s nothing. I haven’t done that in a while, is all.”

“Uh-huh,” Rhett hums. He’s still a little panicky, if he’s honest.

There an awkwardness between them for a few moments and Rhett doesn’t know where to go from here. He’s not sure if the whole center of the universe has changed and he’ll get a frantic call from his mom soon, wondering what happened. He doesn’t know what to expect, and it’s a little scary, if he’s honest. It’s been a while since something has happened that’s shaken him up, but this is definitely leaving him a little jittery and unsettled.

“Natural progression,” Link mutters, barely loudly enough for Rhett to hear him. “They’ll get a phone call from a nice man who will have some information on an inheritance from a great aunt they never knew about in a little while. That’s how it works.”

For the first time, Rhett is glad Link can read his mind. “Thanks, man,” he says, and claps a hand on his shoulder. “One down, two to go, huh?”

“Two to go,” Link echoes.

__

Over the course of two weeks, Link discovers a lot about the world.

For instance, Netflix.

Also Youtube.

When he isn’t sleeping, he’s blinking at the TV, using his freaky genie powers to flip through episodes of _House_  and _CSI_ without ever touching a remote. Rhett finds him sneaking a look at porn all of once, blush high on his face when Rhett just snorts and tells him to do that when he’s at work, next time.

He doesn’t know if he actually does, but he sets Link up with his own account on his laptop just in case.

The thing is, something is weird about him, now. Ever since he made his first wish, Link has been skittish and awkward—more so than what’s normal—flinching when Rhett brushes an arm against him when they’re on the couch or walking past each other in the kitchen. Something is off about him. He talks less, says things with a little forlorn lilt to his voice when he does talk. He’s moping, is what Rhett picks up, and he gets it.

He lets him mope, but there’s a little bit of worry he can’t shake. If he’s going to have a being in his house than can make magic happen, he wants that being to be as happy as possible.

The problem is, Rhett doesn’t know how to go about asking him what’s wrong, doesn’t know how to approach the subject. He can’t very well say, ‘Hey, man, I know your house exploded and you have to live with a complete stranger, but can you be a little happier?’

“I’m fine,” Link tells him one night, when they’re watching _Indiana Jones_ and eating the best Chinese food Rhett has ever had in his life. Rhett doesn’t make a comment about reading his mind again, saving the argument for another time. “Don’t worry about me, alright?”

They somehow manage to find a system, like they’ve been doing this their whole lives, of passing off containers and leaving things the other likes untouched. Rhett doesn’t even realize they’re doing it until he’s pushing bell peppers to the side for Link and eating the cabbage in the corner of the container left for him. Shaking his head, he passes the noodles over to Link, grabbing the rice instead.

“You don’t seem fine, man,” he says. Which, really, he doesn’t know why he cares _so much_. If he’s honest, once the worry fades, there’s still something in him that just wants Link to be okay. It’s like this innate thing he doesn’t even think about.

Link shrugs, puts the noodle container on the coffee table in front of him. Rhett watches him very pointedly wipe his hands and then his mouth with a napkin, avoiding sparing even a glance Rhett’s way.

Rhett nudges him with his shoulder. “I think I have my second wish,” he says.

Link’s skin starts glowing again almost immediately, this weird silvery hue, and Rhett grabs at his hand, watches swirls of silver and gold dance along his skin. Link’s palm is cool to the touch, and when Rhett traces the swirls with the tip of one finger, he jerks his hand back to himself, scowls like Rhett punched him or something.

“Gosh, Rhett—“ he stammers, shaking his hand as though he would have been electrocuted.

When Rhett grabs his hand again, it’s with purpose. He wants to know what this is. He wants to know why Link is reacting the way he is, why his skin is glowing the way it is, but the words die short in his throat. Something about this is weirder than it should be.

It’s the strangest thing he’s ever seen, the way it looks like paint strokes over his skin, watercolors brighter than they should ever be allowed to be. They’re shimmery and probably the prettiest thing Rhett’s ever seen. He wants to know why they’re different every time, but the question falls flat when they change again, into oranges and reds, darker and thicker than before.

“Rhett,” Link says again, when his thumb passes over a orange swirling down his wrist. “Come on, man.”

“Does this happen every time?” he asks, eyes flicking up to look at Link’s face. He’s biting at his bottom lip, brow furrowed like he’s worried.

Experimentally, he laces their fingers together, watches the look on Link’s face change from worry to something else that he can’t put his finger on. His whole hand is cold, and he can feel Link’s pulse against his palm. It’s like he’s vibrating, thrumming, like Rhett can _feel_ the magic right there, centered in his hand.

“This isn’t _supposed_ to happen,” Link mutters, and Rhett flicks his eyes up again, watching Link instead of the colors on his skin.

“What does it mean?” and Link takes a deep, shuddering breath and shakes his head. “You know. Why won’t you tell me?” It comes out more accusatory than he wants, more forceful, but he’s getting upset. He doesn’t know what’s happening. He just wants to know what’s happening.

“I’ll tell you one day,” Link tells him softly. “Just make your wish, okay?”

Rhett drops his hand, scratches the back of his neck. He can feel heat flare on his face, some form of pseudo-embarrassment washing through him. “I want a dog,” he admits, shrugging a little.

“So go get a dog. I’m not wasting a wish on that,” Link says, and the colors fade, the swirls stop, he goes back to blinking through the channels on the TV.

“What happened to ‘just think of anything, Rhett, I don’t want to be here forever’? You can’t tell me what I can and can’t wish for,” Rhett argues, getting indignant. This is stupid. Link is being weird and he’s taking up all the space on the couch with his bony legs, and Rhett wishes Link never showed up in his house.

“Now, that’s a better wish,” Link mutters. “But to answer your question, I can do exactly that. And you can go adopt a dog from an animal shelter and be a good human being. Have you seen those sad commercials with that awful song about angels? You should have a hundred dogs by now. Shame on you.”

 Rhett doesn’t dignify him with an answer, turning his attention to the food again. ‘ _Jerk_ ,’ he thinks, angrily.

“Double jerk,” Link mutters, leaning over to grab at the container of noodles on the coffee table. Rhett catches a little smile he doesn’t think he was supposed to see, notices Link looking down at the hand Rhett was holding a moment ago.  

__

“You said you wanted one!”

“I said _one_ ,” Rhett says, throwing his arms up. Still, when he sits down on the floor and he’s instantly attacked by five tiny, wiggling puppies, he forgets he said one and remembers saying precisely five. “I can’t have five dogs.”

“Pick one,” Link says, sitting down next to him, careful not to sit on a puppy.

They’re all so cute, wet noses digging into his hands and legs, clumsy, chubby little legs trying desperately to climb up onto him. He spots a black one, nipping playfully at Link’s waggling fingers.  When Link laughs, he knocks a shoulder into him, sharing a smile.

“You like that one?” Rhett asks, and he doesn’t know why Link’s shy nod makes his decision for him. “Awesome. That’s the one, then.”

Link huffs out a laugh at that, gives him a look and says, “What? That’s stupid, man. Choose the one you want.”

“I want that one,” he insists, leaning over to scratch at the top of her head. She nips at him too, gives him a little attempt at a bark, and runs over clumsily. “What’s the breed, do you know?”

“Pure bred labs,” Link says. “I figured I couldn’t waste a wish on a dog, but I made a call and had a woman deliver these over so you could spend some time with them and figure out which one you liked best.” Rhett eyes him carefully, hoping he reads the concern for the morality of all of this. “She owed me! I knew her when she was a little girl. Long story, but let’s say her father wasn’t great, and I took care of him for her.”

Rhett is still worried about morals for all of five seconds before a little brown puppy bounces its way over and nudges at his hand. He picks it up, holds it close to his face in hopes for kisses, and laughs when he gets more than he bargained for.

“Puppy breath!” he laughs. “Gosh, that’s the best.”

Link laughs, too, bright and happy, and something in Rhett opens up at the sound. He feels a little euphoric, puppies and Link, everything happy and gentle for the first time in a while. The little black puppy stays close to Link the whole time, the others sort of jumping between the two of them.

Rhett’s made his decision, and he thinks Link has too. He watches Link pick her up, lay down on his back with a laugh, and plop her down on his chest. She skidders down his side at first, yelping a little when Link catches her before she falls.

They stay like that for a while, playing with the puppies on the floor of Rhett’s living room. And then Link looks over at him, eyes soft, and asks, “What’re we gonna name her?” He’s sat back up, legs crossed so the black puppy can chew on his shoelace.

“Charlie,” Rhett decides. “Ya’ll have bonded, it’s only appropriate if I name her after you.”

Link reaches over and grabs at Rhett’s hand, laces their fingers together without any preamble. Panic settles in his chest, if only because he knows his hands are clammy, but Link looks at him out the corner of his eye, small grin in place. When Rhett looks down, the colors swirling along his skin are blues and greens.

He passes a thumb over them, watches Link shudder, listens to the intake of breath, and wonders what this means.

“I have my second wish,” Rhett says softly, looking down at the mass of puppies. Neither of them make eye contact, and Rhett knows this one will be granted. “My brother and his family? They tried closing on a house and got denied. They just need a small one, but I want them to have a home.”

He catches a glimpse of Link’s colors, and they’re blues and purples and greens, vibrant and beautiful as ever.

“Make the last one for you, yeah?” Link says, but squeezes the hand he’s holding, and Rhett feels the rush of cold that happened last time. It crashes through him, leaves him short of breath, pulling tears to his eyes. Like that first plunge on a rollercoaster, his stomach drops, and he’s squeezing Link’s hand back, too hard from the sound of his wince.

He mumbles an embarrassed apology, shoots Link a look before he notices all the puppies are gone, too. All except Charlie, who’s curled up in Link’s lap, snuffling in her sleep.

“You’re a good guy, Rhett,” Link says, fingers toying with Rhett’s.

The colors are gone, but somehow there’s still a glow around Link. Rhett thinks maybe it’s been there all along and he just never noticed it.

__

Things get a little more domestic now that they have Charlie. Rhett thinks it has a lot to do with their little moment that day, but he gives Charlie the credit. She wiggles around the house, nips at their fingers and yelps when she’s hungry.

They bathe her together, take turns feeding her, all the stuff good pet owners do. Link refuses to use magic on her, tells Rhett, “You’ll get too used to me doing all the work, and that’s not fair.”

Link sleeps less, just a little bit, but less, and they’ll watch movies and play video games together. It’s sort of like college all over again, except his roommate doesn’t get really drunk and have sex with girls on his couch, of which he is very thankful.

Rhett manages to get Link to do little things without magic, too, for the fun of watching him try and learn new things.

Cooking is not Link’s forte, Rhett learns quickly, but he still tries to teach him as best he can. He burns through a whole carton of eggs one morning trying to make omelets, and Rhett laughs at him for approximately twenty minutes. 

Tonight, Rhett lets him chop vegetables for a stir-fry. He’s feeling ambitious. Plus, Link can just heal himself if something goes wrong like he did when he spilled boiling water on his arm that one time.

As Rhett expects, after a couple of minutes, he cuts himself, and while Rhett is running cool water over the small slice, Link is telling him, “This is why I have magic powers, man! The universe decided it was just safer for everyone involved if I didn’t use tools!”

“It’s no bigger than a paper cut, Link,” Rhett chuckles, leading him and his finger over to the paper towel rack. “You’ll be fine, I promise.”

Link grumbles something under his breath, and Rhett watches the way his glasses slip down his nose. He doesn’t think before he’s reaching out and pushing them back up for Link while he tends to his wound. Within seconds, it’s gone, and Rhett makes a noise as if to say, ‘See?’

“Shut up,” Link says, but he smiles up at Rhett anyway. “How mad are you going to be if I use my mojo to chop all this?”

“Dude, it’s easy,” Rhett tells him. “Watch me again.”

“It’s not that I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing, it’s that my hands won’t do it,” Link argues. He has a point, but Rhett isn’t about to admit that. He’s chopped two zucchini for Link already, showing him how to hold the knife and curl his fingers so he doesn’t slice the tip of one off or something, but it doesn’t seem to making a difference at all. His hands are too unsteady, shaky and full of nervous energy all the time.

If Link wasn’t a genie, Rhett would be very nervous for him. 

“Watch what I can do,” Link says, and he runs his hand over the squash, leaving a bunch of perfect slices in its wake. “How’s that for a trick, huh?”

Rhett rolls his eyes, picks up one of the cylinders and bites it in half, dropping the other half onto the floor where Charlie is yipping excitedly. He bumps his hip into Link’s and motions for him to pick up the knife again. “This time, use the knife like I showed you, and I’ll be impressed.”

“What’re you gonna do if I don’t?” Link asks, looking up at Rhett with a grin.

He thinks about it for a second. “Nothing, I guess. I just want the stir-fry to be done.”

Link laughs at that, shrugs his shoulders. “I can have this done in like, two seconds, man.”

“If I let you do it, the chicken will be undercooked and kill me or something,” Rhett tells him, eyeing him carefully, making sure he doesn’t do anything fishy.

Link counters with, “I’ve managed to nourish and take care of myself for upwards of four-hundred years, and I’ve only ever severely hurt myself once.”

“Still, I don’t trust you with my life,” Rhett says. “I don’t even trust you with _your_ life.”

With a mischievous look in his eye, Link puts a hand over the pile of vegetables, wiggles his fingers and his eyebrows. His hips move next, a silly looking display that makes Rhett raise an eyebrow, despite the fond chuckles falling out of him.

“Don’t,” Rhett says, turning to pick up the knife again. The knife goes through the onion once before it’s falling apart into thin julienned slices. “Link,” he warns.

“What’re you gonna do about it?” Link asks, smiling when Rhett turns around to face him again.

He tries to pull a serious face, but this is so ridiculous, and he can feel the smile slipping through. Link’s laughter echoes his own, and when he points a finger at him, Link presses the tip of his to Rhett’s.

The jolt that goes through him makes him laugh harder, and before he realizes what he’s doing, he’s tugging Link close, sealing their mouths together. It’s quick, dry, and sudden, but it makes him shiver all over. It feels like when Link’s colors are swirling over the tops of his hands and he touches Rhett. It feels like the wind gets knocked out of him.

Everything comes to a vivid pinpoint, which is his mouth pressed against Link’s. When it’s over, and he’s pulling back and Link is pressing his fingers to his mouth, eyes wide and soft and questioning, Rhett notices the reds and oranges dancing across his hands.

“We should, um,” Rhett tries, but it falls short, and he gestures at the cutting board. “Food.”

“You’re such a dork,” Link mutters, rolling his eyes with a faint smile that Rhett finds himself mimicking.

It falls when he turns around and sees the food completely cooked, steaming and plated up and everything. He spins around, a sound of disbelief and betrayal rushing out of him. Link doubles over laughing, and Rhett frowns at him until he calms down. It takes a good two minutes, but eventually he’s wiping at his eyes and straightening back up.

“Oops?” Link says, smile big and bright. “Will it help if I tell you this is the first time I’ve ever cooked for someone else?”

“No,” Rhett says immediately. But then he thinks about it for a second, and realizes his stomach does some sort of weird flip thing when he thinks about it. “Maybe,” he decides. “But you’re still a jerk for it. Just a romantic jerk.”

“Get the wine and I’ll even carry everything to the table for us, like a real gentleman,” Link laughs.

__

They don’t talk about the kiss.

They don’t even mention it to one another. Rhett literally never stops thinking about it, so he knows Link is aware of his slight existential crisis he’s having given his inability to stay out of Rhett’s head.

 The thing is, Rhett’s comfortable with his sexuality, and has been since college, when he realized he was looking at boys just as much as he was looking at girls. He’s never acted on it before, and has been hesitant to give it a name, but he’s fine with his sexuality. It’s just a part of who he is, and that’s cool.

The problem lies within the fact that Link isn’t just a boy. He’s not just a guy who’s rooming with Rhett. He’s a freaking mythical creature. He can wave his hand over Rhett’s wet hair and style it in seconds, clean up the milk he spills all over the floor just by blinking his eyes—for goodness sake, he’s _immortal_.

The fact that Link has a penis isn’t what’s intimidating; it’s the fact that Link isn’t necessarily human.

But, still. Most of him wants to do it again.

He very vehemently ignores that urge all week.

It’s really hard to fight it, however, when Link curls into him out of fear when they watch some stupid horror movie Link insisted on watching. Rhett hasn’t paid any attention to the movie at all, has no idea what’s going on, but he is acutely aware of Link’s fingers digging bruises into his thigh, Link’s slim body pressed along the line of his own.

He’s so aware of Link’s every intake of breath, his damp mouth pressed into Rhett’s shoulder whenever something too gory comes on the screen.

Even more so, he’s aware of the stirrings of his own erection, completely inappropriate and embarrassing and he so, _so_ hopes Link isn’t reading his mind right now because all he wants to do is _touch_ him.

“You can, you know,” Link murmurs, and for a second Rhett thinks he’s imagining things. But Link slides his hand further up Rhett’s thigh, eyes wide and inviting when Rhett looks down at him with a start. “You can touch me.”

“Dammit, Link,” Rhett gasps, turning so he can push Link onto his back, slide between his legs, and kiss him on his stupid perfect mouth again.

And gosh, when he slots their mouths together, gets a feel for him again, it’s like he’s been missing this for years instead of days. He’s a starving man, dying of thirst in the desert, and Link is his mirage. His hands end up on Link’s hips holding him in place while he licks past the seam of his mouth, behind his teeth. He chases the faint taste of peanut butter that he somehow knew was going to be there, moans thickly against Link’s mouth.

When they pull apart, Link is panting, and with a crooked smile, tells him, “Ya know, I’ve never done this before.”

Rhett groans thickly, buries his face into Link’s chest with a chuckle. “Yeah, well, I’ve never done it with a genie.” And then, after a second, “Or a guy.”

“Good,” Link tells him, hands already pulling Rhett back to him. “Then it’ll be new for both of us.”

Their lips touch again, and Rhett swears he can feel actual sparks, little electric currents flowing through his bottom lip where Link’s smashes into his clumsily.

He realizes after a second that Link really must have never done this because he isn’t very good at it. So he gets his hands on Link’s neck, holds him in place, thinks, ‘ _Let me do it_.’

The angle is bad, but he gets it after a second, licks Link’s mouth open and uses his teeth to nip at the thick bottom lip. He uses his hands to manhandle him how he wants, and Link’s whole body goes slack, mouth working against Rhett’s own, mimicking what Rhett’s doing. It’s better—a lot better—once Link really gets the hang of it.

Rhett could do this for hours.

He likes being between Link’s legs like this, feeling the shift of his thigh muscles whenever Rhett does something he likes and the vibrations of his chest when he moans. He likes how responsive Link is, how he sighs and groans into the kisses.

It takes a while for Rhett to feel comfortable actually touching Link, hands going from his neck down to his waist, holding onto those slim little hips. He slips them up under Link’s shirt, dances them along the sensitive skin of his stomach. Once he hits Link’s chest, he can’t stop the sounds falling out of him. Something about those broad shoulders, his chest firm and wide, hair and muscle and soft skin all for him to touch and grab. He avoids the scar he remembers seeing, doesn’t know how Link would react, if it would ruin things. He’ll ask about it later.

Link makes a high sound in the back of his throat whenever Rhett passes a thumb over his nipple, and Rhett pulls back to smile down at him, catch his breath, and watch Link’s eyes flutter open.

His lips are cherry red, swollen and abused. Rhett realizes a little late that he’s fully hard now. The line of his body is pressed against Link, so there’s no way he doesn’t feel it, pushing into his hip. He’s a little embarrassed, but the feeling fades once Link tilts his hips up, too, and Rhett can feel the jut of Link’s cock, hard and thick, against him.

With a soft laugh, Link says, “If I’d have ever come up with a wish for myself, it would have probably been something like this.”

“What, making out on a couch?” Rhett says, stroking his thumb over Link’s nipple again, just to watch him squirm.

His eyes roll up in his head just a little bit when Rhett pinches at him, and he files that image away for safe keeping, leaning back down to kiss along the line of his throat when he stretches out. “Yeah,” Link sighs. “Man, I’ve spent four hundred years without knowing this felt like _this_. What a waste of my time.”

“Food and sex would have been the first things on my priorities list if I was a genie,” Rhett admits. He bites at the soft skin on his neck, humming when Link’s hands flies up to his hair, tugs on a handful with a gasp. “Good?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Link groans, thick and loud, and _oh_ , is that sound dangerous. Rhett would do anything to hear that sound again, absolutely anything, whatever Link wants. “I want you to touch me, is what I want.”

“I am touching you,” Rhett says, pressing his smile into the crook of Link’s neck. He rubs the thicker part of his beard over the sensitive skin, heating at the sharp intake of breath he gets when he goes.

“Gosh,” Link gasps, and it trails off into a chuckle. “This is crazy. You realize that, right?”

“Absolutely,” Rhett says, nipping at Link’s ear.

It doesn’t make him want to stop, though. He’s always been okay with a little bit of crazy.

__

It’s been three months since Link showed up. Two weeks since Rhett first kissed him.

He doesn’t really know how he feels about any of it, and he definitely doesn’t know how Link feels about it, but Rhett notices that there are flowers all over his house suddenly, roses and daisies and lilies all over the place. He doesn’t know what it means, doesn’t really question it because it smells nice and Link is here more than he is.

Which, if Rhett was in Link’s situation, he’d be losing his mind. He can’t sit in one place for too long, much less literally be unable to leave somewhere.

 “You aren’t tired of being in the house all the time?” Rhett asks one night when they’re watching _Chopped_ , Link sprawled out on the couch with his legs in Rhett’s lap. Charlie is curled on Link’s chest, where he’s gently scratching her on the head. It’s all a little too domestic, too comfortable.

He shrugs his shoulders. “It’s roomier than my bottle was. I’ve never really spent a lot of time out of my bottle, much less _outside_.”

When Rhett thinks about that, he dies a little on the inside. He wants to take Link camping, take him to the ocean, to Disneyland, hiking through the mountains. He wants Link to experience all the good things about the world, and he wants to be the one to do it with him.

“That’s—I’m going to change that one day,” Rhett says, and he means it. He doesn’t know how, doesn’t even know if it’s possible, but he’s going to make it happen. He’ll invent something, or use his final wish to make it happen, or whatever it takes. Link deserves it. It sits a little heavy on his chest, fills him up with a weird feeling of melancholy that he doesn’t really understand.

Link digs the heel of his foot into Rhett’s thigh, pulling him from his thoughts. When Rhett looks over, he says, “I’m okay.”

“It’s not fair,” Rhett counters. “You shouldn’t be trapped all the time.”

Link lets out a laugh at that, presses a kiss to Charlie’s head when she nips at him for jostling her. “That’s sort of a genie’s whole thing, you know. You just kind of deal with it, I don’t know. I take a lot of naps.”

“I know you do.” In fact, the couch is starting to have a Link-shaped dent in it. “But that’s not how you live, man.”

“It is if you’re immortal,” Link says. He sounds irritated, and Rhett regrets bringing it up for a brief second. “This is all I’ve ever known, Rhett. I didn’t exactly know what I was missing until my bottle shattered and I was forced to live with you.”

He wants to be angry. For a second, he is. But he realizes he can’t be angry, because Link didn’t ask for this. Link was doing his job, going about his life, and everything sort of changed for him. Nothing changed for Rhett except now he’s got Link.

Link’s whole world is different now.

Gosh, he’s an idiot.

“I have my third wish,” Rhett says.

“No, you don’t,” Link tells him, turning his attention back to the TV.

Rhett reaches over for the remote, turns it off. “Yes, Link. I do, okay? It’s time. It’s been three months.”

 “No, Rhett.” He’s _dismissing_ him. And that—well, that just doesn’t work for Rhett.

“I can’t let you sit in this house forever!” he says. “Grant my wish, damnit. I can’t keep being selfish.”

He notices the colors aren’t there, notices Link’s gone tense and his eyebrows are drawn together. If Rhett didn’t know better, he’d think Link was about to cry.

None of this makes sense. He wants, more than anything, to know why Link is so hesitant about this. Genies are supposed to grant wishes, that’s what he knows, and this is twice now that Rhett has wanted something and Link has said no.

“I wish you’d tell me what’s so different about us,” Rhett says. That’s how it works, right? He says the words and Link has to grant the wish.

“No,” Link says again, turning his head to look directly at him, eyebrows raised in a challenge. “That’s not how this works.” He blinks, and the TV comes back on. “This isn’t different. You aren’t special, Rhett. You just have shitty wishes.”  

The anger that washes over him is unwarranted, and the guilt sits heavy in his stomach. Link is lying to him now, ignoring the fact that he’s already confirmed that something is weird between them. It grates on Rhett, and he hates this for just a second, in a real, visceral way that aches down to his bones.

 “This isn’t fair,” is what he says. Those aren’t the words he expected to come out of him, but once they’re out, he _means_ them. “This isn’t fair, Link.”

“To who? You?” Link asks, calm and collected, and Rhett hates this. “Because—“

“It isn’t fair to either one of us!” Rhett interrupts. “You’re keeping whatever this is from me. Whatever is going on involves me, and I have a right to know, damnit!”

He moves Link’s legs off of his lap, stands up. “And you’re sitting on my couch all day long. When this all started, when you showed up in my living room, you spent two days telling me to hurry up and make my wishes so you could move on with your life. You wanted nothing more than to get out of here and go to Haiti to get all of this figured out. What changed, Link?”

“Nothing,” Link says. “Nothing changed.”

“You’re freaking lying to me,” Rhett tells him. This is stupid. This is so stupid, and he wants to yell. He doesn’t know where to put this anger, how to let it out.

Link lets out a sharp laugh, loud and inappropriate. “You could always punch me again.”

“You’re driving me crazy,” Rhett says through gritted teeth. “Just tell me what the hell is going on, Link.”

Link stands up, face blank and eerily calm, gets in Rhett’s space.

“The reason my bottle blew up,” he says, and Rhett almost doesn’t hear the rest over the roaring in his head, “is because you’re my soul mate, and when a genie finds his soul mate, he doesn’t get to be a genie anymore. Once I grant your last wish, it’s all gone, Rhett. No more magic, no more immortality. No more _genie_ to grant your wishes.”

__

Rhett doesn’t remember getting in his car, but somehow he ends up about thirty minutes from his house, in a vacant parking lot, staring out at an empty park.

His hands are shaking, and he feels like he can’t breathe even though his chest is rising and falling rapidly.

When he came out to California, he had plans. He was going to do videos, make art, do something that felt good instead of sitting at a desk and drawing maps all day. He was going to do something with his life, have an adventure, smile more and be as good as he could be.

When he came out to California, it was to learn and live and thrive.

And he’s here, looking out at an empty park, trying to slow his breathing down. This doesn’t feel real.

_He_ doesn’t feel real.

If he’s honest with himself, he doesn’t know what he said to Link before he left, or if he even said anything at all. He feels bad.

Gosh, he feels so bad about all of this.

He fishes out his phone, thinks about calling his mom just to hear the sound of her voice, but decides against it in the end. What would he say? How is going to explain any of this to anyone?

More importantly, how is he going to apologize to Link?

The words _soul mate_ have been ringing in his head since Link said them.

That’s not a thing. That’s not possible. None of this is a preconceived thing, everything is arbitrary. Life isn’t a freaking fairy-tale.

Except, Link has proven that maybe it is. Maybe all those things people came up with in stories are a little truer than anyone knows. If there are genies in this world who can do real, actual magic and grant wishes and make you fall in love with them, then anything is possible, right?

And gosh, he’s in love with Link.

Three months, a little magic, and he’s in _love_ with him. His chest hurts. His stomach is in knots from trying to figure out the best way to handle this.

He turns the car back on, sighs, and heads back home.

The drive takes longer this time, considering he abides by the speed limits and he’s not brimming with anger. He uses the time to think some more. After a second, he wonders if Link can read his mind from this far away.

He really hopes not, because it would be shitty if the way Link finds out he’s in love with him is via freaky mind-reading abilities while Rhett is sulking twenty miles away.

When he pulls into the driveway, the first thing he notices is that all the lights are off. He knows Link likes the dark, but usually the kitchen light is on because, in Link’s words, ‘ _That’s where killers hang out in all of those crime shows.’_

But every single light is off, and Rhett’s stomach drops. His heart jack-rabbits in his chest, and he feels like he might puke for just a second, the nerves and anxiety welling up in him.

_‘Link couldn’t have left_ ,’ he keeps telling himself, ‘ _Link can’t leave_.’

It feels eerily still inside, quiet and stale like he’s been out for weeks. The flowers are gone, and he takes a deep, shaky breath when he realizes it.

Charlie doesn’t meet him at the door, tail wagging, like she usually does.

Somehow, in that short period of time, everything changed. He feels empty, vulnerable, like Link left and carved out a part of him.

“I’m in your room, you idiot,” he hears, muffled through a couple of walls, and he jumps at the sound of Link’s voice.

Sure enough, Link is curled up in the center of Rhett’s bed, petting Charlie with one hand, the other supporting his head. He doesn’t look up at Rhett when he walks in, says a shy, “Hey.”

“Why did you leave?” Link asks, cutting right to the chase.

Rhett shrugs at first, wipes his hands over his face with a sigh. “I don’t know. I didn’t know what else to do.”

Link takes a deep breath, nods his head. He’s still eerily calm, face blank, eyes stuck on Charlie, who’s chewing on a toy and growling softly.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” Rhett says, keeping his voice quiet and subdued. The anger is gone, replaced with a need to make this okay. “I—“

“It’s okay,” Link mumbles, and he looks up at Rhett. He pointedly makes eye-contact. “I needed time to think, anyway. This is kind of a big deal, you know?”

“Yeah,” Rhett agrees, moving to sit on the bed. Charlie barks excitedly, flops herself down onto his lap. It’s a good distraction, and he gets why Link spends so much time holding her, why he sleeps with her on his chest at night.

He watches Link sit up, cross his legs to give Rhett more room. The conversation is already weighing him down, and it hasn’t even really started yet. Link is stuck between a rock and a hard place; he gets to be a genie if he never grants Rhett’s last wish, never leaves Rhett’s house for the rest of eternity, or he gets to give up the only life he’s ever known and start a new one. And that’s—

Rhett hates this. No matter what he imagines Link choosing to do, it makes his chest hurt. This isn’t fair.

“This wasn’t your fault,” Link starts. “I want you to know that.”

Rhett wants to argue, but he knows it’s true. The guilt in him wants to scream that this is entirely his fault. It forms a lump in his throat and presses on his chest. But logically, he knows Link is right. So he keeps his mouth shut, listens to Link say, “But this sucks, man. This sucks so much.” He looks defeated. Rhett only just now notices the circles around his eyes.

Link’s hand shakes when he reaches out to touch Rhett’s arm, second-guessing himself and pulling his hand back like he was burned. So Rhett grabs his hand instead, laces their fingers together like he did what feels like forever ago, on his couch.

“Look, I’m not good at stuff,” Link says, gesturing with his hand, “but I’m good at being a genie. It’s the one thing I haven’t been able to fuck up for four-hundred and twenty-eight years.” The laugh he lets out is pained, ending on a sob. “I’m scared, alright?”

“I’m scared, too,” Rhett admits softly, squeezing Link’s hand. “And I don’t really know what any of this means, if I’m honest.”

This time, when he laughs, it’s a little more genuine, and Rhett smiles just a little bit. “This doesn’t happen. Like, ever. I’ve certainly never heard of it happening before,” he says. “It’s just a myth amongst genies, pretty much. Except here we are.”

“Have you known all along?” Rhett asks, because he said that’s why his bottle shattered. So this has been weird from the get-go, from the moment Link popped up in the middle of his living room and started turning Rhett’s world upside-down.

Link shakes his head, looks down at their hands. “Only since the first wish. When I touched you, and that _whatever_ it was happened? That’s when I realized what was going on. I figured my bottle exploded because of poor handling on your part.” His smile is small, but Rhett beams at it, feeling light and better for just a second. “But then I touched you and I could see it. It’s been eating at me ever since, man.”

“So,” he starts, “if you grant one more wish, do you die?”

His brows furrow and he shrugs his shoulders, looks up at Rhett with wet eyes. “I don’t know, honestly.”

And gosh, that’s the scary part of all of this, has been from the very beginning—the not knowing, the uncertainty. Rhett’s not good with not knowing things, never has been. He’s _got_ to know, got to be absolutely sure of everything.

But this is—more than anything, this is terrifying.

At its core, it’s up to Link. He has to make the decision. He has to be ready for this, and Rhett can’t push him or persuade him, and he’s got to remember that before he starts spewing out ideas. But god, he wants Link to stay.

“Can I wish that we could go back to the other day? On the couch?” he asks, realizing the thickness in his throat. His eyes are wet, too, and it’s hard not to let the tears fall when he notices the streaks down Link’s cheeks.

Without thinking, he’s reaching out and wiping at them with the back of his index finger.

He wants Link in his future so badly it hurts. Now that he’s had him here, spent time with him and lived with him and _loved_ him, he can’t imagine a life without him. His stupid jokes and his flowers and his smile, all of it belongs here, with Rhett.

But that’s not right, is it? It belongs wherever Link wants it to be. It belongs where Link will be happiest, whether that’s with Rhett or not.

His morals are battling against one another, and he tries hard not to be selfish. He’s not good at that, though. He wants Link to be here, with him. A few weeks ago, he made him a promise, said he was going to take him see what’s outside, something other than the inside of this house. He made Link a promise, and he puts all of his energy into the universe, asking whatever feels like listening out there for Link to still be here when he makes his decision. Just let him be alive.

Let him be healthy and alive. They can figure the rest out after that. 

“You got that third wish yet?” Link asks, and when Rhett looks up at him, he’s crying for real now, sniffling and trembling and Rhett pulls him close, manhandles until he’s almost in Rhett’s lap.

“Don’t die on me, okay?” And he’s crying now, too. He lets the tears fall, holds onto Link. “I wish,” he starts, shaky and so scared he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Link trembles in his arm, and Rhett tries not to think about it. “I wish for you to be okay, Link.”

He holds on tight, feels Link’s hands squeeze around him once. There’s a rush of electricity that goes through him, and he feels the hair on his arms stand on end. For a second, he thinks Link pushes him away, when he lands on his back, a blast of cold running through him.

But when he opens his eyes and sees that Link isn’t there, he realizes something much, much worse has happened.

__

He and Charlie spend a week on the couch, wrapped up in the blanket Link slept with. He calls into work, eats approximately nine boxes of Mini Wheats, and watches _Indiana Jones_ and the entirety of the _Star Wars_ trilogy six times each.

Rhett doesn’t mope.

He’s never been one to pout or whine or cry, but he does all of those things for a whole week. Charlie does, too, and they mourn together.

Really, he’s mad. He doesn’t know what happened to Link, so that means, yet again, he’s out of the loop. And that’s really stupid, that, one more time in his life, a major thing is happening and he has no idea what’s going on.

Link couldn’t have died, right? ‘ _Genies can’t die, dude_ ,’ he’d said once, so it’s got to be true. He believes that with everything in him.

It doesn’t mean he’s not mad that Link’s gone, though. It just means he’s hopeful that he’s out there, somewhere, living the life Rhett promised he’d help him live.

He isn’t bitter at all. He promises himself he’s not.

Except maybe just a little bit, for that first week.

And then, just to torture himself, once his week of moping is up, he spends three days crying. Three whole days, tissues close-by, Charlie whining pitifully at his feet while he sobs at the kitchen counter, on the couch, in his bed, in the shower, literally everywhere.

Someone at work sends him a fruit basket with a ‘Get Well Soon’ balloon attached, and he spends his last day home smashing all the fruit in his bathtub, watching it splatter all over his pristine, white shower walls. When he’s done, and his breathing is normal again, he eats a hunk of pineapple, sitting with his back against the tub, and he feels better.

__

He’s home later than usual tonight. The clatter of his keys dropping onto the kitchen counter echoes through the house, and he sighs.

He hears Charlie’s nail tapping against the linoleum, her collar jingling through the house. The house is live tonight, whirs from the refrigerator, the hum of the air conditioner, Charlie, the bugs outside. And, underneath that, nothing.

Just a vivid, stark, nothingness.

He’s never been depressed before in his life, but if this is what it feels like, then his heart goes out to everyone living daily with this feeling sitting on their chests.

Bending down to pick Charlie up, he carries her to the living room, nuzzling his face into the top of her head and kissing her sweetly. She smells different.

Which, he realizes is odd, and he’s thrown off for a second, not believing it himself and chalking it up to his weird mood. But when he smells her again, nose pressed into the fat rolls on her neck, there’s no way he’s making it up.

She smells like _peanut butter_.

And that’s when he hears the soft, “Oh, hey.”

With a startled gasp, clinging onto Charlie for dear life, he spins around, free hand raised and poised to punch the first thing he comes across.

It falls short, though, drops down to his side, and instead he’s using his free hand to pull Link to him, hugging him desperately. “What the hell, dude?” he gasps. It comes out watery, and he mentally kicks himself. “What the hell?” he says again, pulling away to get a look at him. He leans down to put a wriggling Charlie back on the floor, turning his attention back to Link as soon as she runs off.

His hair is dripping wet, and he’s shirtless, of course he is. But he’s wearing a pair of Rhett’s sweatpants, tied tight, but still falling off of his slim hips. He looks even smaller now, but brighter somehow.

And gosh, that goofy smile makes Rhett’s stomach flip, makes him laugh and smile right back. “Missed me?” Link asks, cheeky and ridiculous and he’s smiling brightly up at Rhett.

Rhett slaps him on the chest, frowning. “Where the hell did you go?”

He pointedly does not watch the muscles in Link’s bicep flex when he scratches the back of his head nervously. “I, uh,” he stutters. “I went see my mom.”

And now he’s really confused. “Your mom’s still alive?”

“No,” Link says, shaking his head. “No, she’s buried in a cemetery in North Carolina. I landed in a few other places first, but that’s where I ended up. I used to be able to talk to her, but when I showed up this time, the connection just wasn’t there.” He’s frowning now, looking somewhere at Rhett’s chest instead of in his eyes.

That means—

“So, no more magic, huh?” he asks, wishing it would have come out a little more sincere. He’s shaken up, seeing Link right here, actually in front of him.

Gosh, he’s right here. And he’s shaking his head, but still grinning. His hair is longer, almost to his shoulders, and Rhett can’t help but think that he’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. So much has changed, it seems, just in that little bit of time. Link is tan, a little more muscular; he seems more alive somehow, and Rhett feels more alive himself.

He looks up at Rhett, smile growing bigger and brighter. Link’s laugh rings out, echoes around the empty room, and the house already feels so full and happy, and Rhett finds himself laughing, too.

“This has been so crazy, man,” Link says through his laughter, hands crossing over his stomach. “Four-hundred years in, and some stupid giant changes everything.”

 “Hey!” Rhett laughs, smacking him on the shoulder with the back of his hand again. When Link smacks him back, he laughs harder, and they hit each other back and forth a few times before Rhett gets a good grip on Link’s wrists, holds them in place. “I missed you, you jerk,” he tells him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Link chuckles, trying to twist his hands out of Rhett’s grip. “Don’t’ get sappy on me now, boy.”

Rhett tugs him close, laughing along with him, and he crashes into Rhett’s chest with a soft sound.  It feels so nice to have him this close, to be able to nuzzle his face into the crook of his neck, breathe him in and press his mouth to the warm skin. Link’s intake of breath has him smiling, pressing his teeth there, too. And gosh, the little breathy moan that slips out is the best thing Rhett’s heard in his whole life.

“So, I’ve been thinking,” Link says, and Rhett pulls him closer, wraps his arms around Link’s torso and buries his face further in his neck. He just wants to revel in this, hold Link just a little while longer before they talk about the inevitable. The angle is uncomfortable, with how much he’s bending to make it happen, but he can handle it if it means he gets to feel Link against him.

Link has another idea, apparently, and he puts a hand on Rhett’s chest, pulling back. There’s a smile on his face, and Rhett whines pitifully, pulling another laugh out of him. “Do we have to talk? Let’s just talk later. After I do this,” he says, hands coming up to cup Link’s face, bending down to press their mouths together.

It starts off sweet, soft and light, Link’s plush lips feeling so nice against his own. But at the first hesitant swipe of Link’s tongue over the seam of his lips, Rhett is manhandling him a little, angling him how he needs him. He returns the favor, licking Link’s mouth open, teeth scraping over his bottom lip. He swallows down the high sounds Link makes in the back of his throat, moaning along with him. It’s so good, fingertips tingling when Link presses against him harder.

Just like last time, he finds himself aching to touch, to run his fingers over the curves and dips in Link’s chest, press and feel as much as Link will let him. Last time they did this, Link had read his mind halfway through, realized what Rhett was thinking about and blushed and stammered his way through an apology. He’d had to assure Link that whatever he wanted was fine, Rhett wasn’t going to rush him or judge him, and they’d ended up kissing just a little bit more, Link’s fingers running through his hair.

And then he’d gone take a shower and jerked off as quietly as possible.

Right now, he wants to spread Link out, get his mouth on him, bite and lick and suck until Link is squirming and desperate and begging. He wants those sweet, breathy moans again.

Link pulls away, licking his lips and staring at Rhett’s mouth. His lips are red, bitten and swollen, and the blush high on his cheeks is almost the same color. “You should fuck me,” Link says, and Rhett can’t help the sound that falls out of him.

It’s a thick rumbling in his chest, loud and rough, and he’s surprised he can hear it over the roaring in his ears. “Say it again,” he says, voice gone low and scratchy. He presses his nose to Link’s, looking him right in the eyes.

“ _Oh_ ,” Link says, and he’s blushing again, chuckling nervously. “I don’t—“

“Come on, baby,” Rhett murmurs, slotting their mouths together again, kissing him wetly. When he pulls away, Link is breathing harder. “Say it again for me.”

Link laughs softly, hands coming to rest on Rhett’s shoulders. Turning his head, Rhett presses his lips to the inside of Link’s wrist, smiling softly while he watches Link bite his bottom lip. “Fuck me,” Link says again, surer now, but he bursts into giggles after he says it, nose scrunching up with it. “Gosh, that sounds so wrong, man.”

“Nuh-uh,” Rhett chuckles, swooping down for another kiss. “Sounds hot.”

The Neanderthal part of his brain kicks in and he’s bending to get a good grip on Link, hands perched under his butt. He lifts him up with a grunt, and Link’s legs instinctively wrap around his waist, arms tightening around his neck so he doesn’t fall. A yelp falls out of him when Rhett jostles him a little so he doesn’t slip, and it turns into a laugh when Rhett grunts out, “You’re heavier than you look, Link.”

“Don’t hurt yourself, big boy,” Link tells him, grinning cheekily.

Luckily, it’s not a far walk to his bedroom, and Link doesn’t except full romance out of him, because he unceremoniously drops him onto the bed and watches him flail with a laugh.

“You’re such a jerk,” Link tells him, laughing while he scoots up further. “Take off your clothes.”

He sort of perches himself, cross-legged at the head of Rhett’s bed, looking at him expectedly, and Rhett shakes his head fondly. “Boy, do you know the way to a boy’s heart,” Rhett tells him, rolling his eyes fondly. “Woo me some more.”

“I don’t have to woo you,” Link says. “I wooed you by proxy of magic for three months. Now, it’s time to—“ and he just waggles his eyebrows.

“You are so ridiculous,” Rhett laughs, crawling onto the bed, tugging at Link’s legs until he’s stretching them out, taking up more of the bed than he has any right to. He looks good here, spread out on Rhett’s sheets.

The sweatpants have ridden down, sitting low on his hips, and Rhett can see the dip of his pelvis, the patch of dark hair there. He licks his lips.

“Alright, I’ve never done this before,” he admits, looking up at Link and catching his blush. “So work with me, okay?”

He tugs the pants down further, finds a mile of clean, tan skin underneath, and Link squirms a little when he leans down to press his mouth to the jut of his hip. It’s easy to suck a mark there, bite and lick away the sting when Link’s hisses.

He has a general idea of how to do this, has watched a few girls do it to him, seen enough porn to kind of understand. But when he licks at the head of Link’s cock and Link’s whole body jerks up, his gasp loud and sharp in the whole room, he sort of gets intimidated. For just a moment, he forgets that Link has never done any of this, never had anyone do any of this to him, either. There’s another layer of intimidation, but buried under that is something else that sits low in Rhett’s belly, hot and heavy and spurring him on.

He’s the first one to get to touch Link like this, and he’s determined not to fuck it up.

Getting an arm across Link’s hips to hold him in place, he uses his free hand to wrap around the base of Link’s cock, smiling at the breathy moan he lets out. Experimentally, he presses a kiss to the underside, right over the thick vein, and Link shudders.

The first moment of having Link’s cock in his mouth, Rhett knows this is something he’s going to like. The weight of it on his tongue, the way Link tenses up with a loud groan, all of it makes him heat up, shoots straight to his own erection and he’s matching Link sound-for-sound.

Link lets out a strained, mumbled, “ _Fuck_ ,” when Rhett tries sucking, pressing the head to the sensitive inside of his cheek. His hips buck up, but Rhett holds him down before he can do any damage, and Link whines high in the back of his throat.

Link is thick and long, and Rhett’s mouth is not big enough to accommodate much of him, but he tries, lets saliva pool in his mouth, using it to slick the way. He doesn’t get very far down before he’s gagging, covering it up with an embarrassed cough, pulling off to look up at Link.

He drinks him in, the way he’s biting at his bottom lip, the flush starting at his cheeks and trailing down his chest, the way he’s panting. His cock sits wetly on his belly, hard and slick with Rhett’s spit. The sweatpants are bunched down by his ankles.

If Rhett was any sort of artist, he’d ask to paint him, just like this.

Instead, what he asks is, “Want me to fuck you, baby?”

And gosh, the way Link shivers, nods his head shyly, makes Rhett hot all over.  He watches Link snake his hand down his own body, wrapping a loose fist around his cock, jerk himself off slowly. It’s so good, the way he reacts to his own touch, his back arching up just a little bit, and Rhett leans down to kiss him, licking into his mouth wetly while he touches himself.

“Gosh, Link,” he breathes, pulling back to watch him again. He passes his thumb over the head and gasps loudly.

“Rhett, come on,” he says, and he’s smiling just a little bit, and he lets go of himself. Tilting his hips up, he nudges Rhett with his leg. “You aren’t freaking out, are you?” There’s a smile on his face, but Rhett can tell he’s serious.

He bends down with a groan, presses his mouth to Link’s collarbone, sucking a mark there. The color blooms bright and harsh, and he loves the way it looks, likes being the one to put the marks there. “Absolutely not,” Rhett tells him, voice thick and low. “Are you?”

“A little,” Link admits, but his arms come up to wrap around Rhett’s neck, holding him in place. “It’s going to hurt, man.”

“It won’t hurt,” Rhett promises. He knows how to do this, spent time researching things in college, when this curiosity first surfaced. “I’ll take my time. Open you up, get you nice and wet, make sure you can take three of my fingers first.”

He nuzzles his face into Link’s neck, his beard rubbing along the sensitive skin there, and Link sucks in a breath. “Then what?” Link asks with a groan.

“And then I’ll put the head of my cock right up to that tight, little hole,” Rhett says, and he can’t help but press his hips against Link’s, the rough denim of his jeans making it hard to get any friction, but the pressure is nice. “I’ll work all of my cock inside you, go nice and slow, let you get used to being full. It’ll feel so good, baby, I promise.”

“Oh,” Link gasps. “Good gosh, Rhett.”

 “Sound good?” he asks, hands trailing down to Link’s thighs.

 The sweatpants get kicked away before he gets an answer, but before long Link is breathy out a shaky, “Yeah, yes.” And then, after a second, he says, “Can you take your clothes off now?”

Rhett chuckles, presses a kiss to Link’s shoulder. He starts at his pants, tugs them off with a little bit of Link’s help, kicking them off once he gets them to his ankles. His shirt next, tossed somewhere in the vicinity of his laundry basket.

Before he gets to his briefs, Link’s hand comes up to his chest, fingers dancing along the expanse of him, thumb swiping over one of his nipples experimentally. A groan rumbles out of him, and he lets Link touch him, lets him dig his fingers into the flesh under his ribs, making him laugh. He gets an amused look in return, when he squirms and giggles at the feeling.

“I’m ticklish, man,” he laughs, slapping at Link’s hands when they instantly go to dig in harder.

“Well, I’m filing that away for later,” Link tells him. But he goes back to gentle touches, trailing down to Rhett’s hips, the waistband of his briefs. When he passes his knuckles over Rhett’s cock, hard and straining in his underwear, Rhett sucks in a breath, groaning thickly. “Alright, off.”

They come off easily, and he wiggles out of them, spreading Link’s legs further so he can line them up, grind his hips against Link’s. Under him, Link shudders, whimpers at the feeling, and Rhett curses under his breath.

There’s lube in his bedside drawer, unopened, and it takes Rhett all of three seconds to dig it out. He uses his teeth to tear the plastic off of it, using shaky hands to open it the rest of the way. “Ready?” he asks, getting a gauge for how Link’s doing, and he gets an enthusiastic nod in response.

The first touch, just the pad of his finger to Link’s hole, has Link jerking. Rhett is sure it’s foreign, feeling someone touching that part of you, and he hums in sympathy. He leans down to kiss Link, slotting their mouths together as a distraction, and when Link sighs a contented sound into his mouth, he presses in with one finger.

It’s easy, at first, slick and tight and hot, and he gets all the way to the third knuckle easily.

He waits a beat, pulls back from the kiss so he knows how Link is responding, and watches his eyelashes flutter against his cheek when he slips his finger back out. More lube, and he presses in again, watching this time, the way Link’s body opens up for him so easily.

He’s relaxed, smiling a little bit when Rhett looks up at him, and Rhett feels his heart skip a beat.

Four months ago, when Link popped up in the middle of his living room, there was no way he would have thought for even a moment something good was going to come out of any of this. He was terrified, thought some psychopath had broken into his house or that he was losing his mind, and everything was just a fever dream. Honestly, he’s not a hundred percent sure this hasn’t just been a fever dream, but Link feels real under him and that’s all that counts.

Right now, this feels real. This feels amazing.

He couldn’t have wished for something more perfect than this moment.

And when he presses in with two fingers, curls his fingers, and watches Link’s face fall into something akin to bliss, he knows this is where he was supposed to end up.

Things got a little off-track for a while, and he lived with this weird genie that ate all of his cereal and watched reality television, but he couldn’t be happier it happened. Nothing has ever made more sense.

Nothing has ever felt more right than when he’s lining the head of his cock up to Link’s slick, open hole some time later, Link trembling and sweating underneath him. He’s gasping out little bitten-off words that Rhett can’t make out, but they fall into a sweet, high moan when Rhett sinks inside him, tight and hot and the best thing Rhett has ever felt in his life.

Link’s thighs are tight around his waist, his fingers digging bruises into Rhett’s arms. He’s got his eyes squeezed tight, mouth open while Rhett bottoms out.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he gasps. “Fuck, I— Gosh, Rhett.”

His eyes fly open, and he hums thickly. When Rhett goes to pull out, he whimpers, “Wait, wait.” It’s hard, probably the hardest thing he’s ever had to do, but he waits, watches Link’s face scrunch up. Link wiggles his hips just a little bit, gasps loudly after a second, and Rhett looks down just in time to watch his cock twitch, hand flying down in an attempt to cover himself as he comes, just like that.

It’s definitely the hottest thing Rhett has ever seen in his life.

“Oh,” Link moans, “Good gracious.” He goes lax, head thrown back, and Rhett experimentally pulls out a little bit, thrusts back into him. Smiling when Link lets out a groan, cock twitching wetly on his belly, he does it again, harder this time. “You can,” Link tells him, nodding his head.

He groans hotly, unable to hold back anymore, trying not to be too rough or hurt Link, but needing to move. Link feels so good around him, hot and tight, and every time Rhett fucks into him, he lets out a little sound that shoots straight to Rhett’s cock. It’s so good, and he tells Link as much, tells him he loves it so much.

“I love it, too,” Link says, “Love the way you feel inside me.”

The sound Rhett lets out at that is not something he’s proud of, high and desperate, ripping through his chest at the sound of Link saying those words. He gasps, “Fuck, you came from just my cock filling you up, baby. That was so _fucking_ hot.”

Link’s laugh is sweet, dripping out of him like honey, and Rhett leans down to kiss the taste of it out of his mouth.

He presses into Link harder, hips canting up, getting as deep as he can. He finds a rhythm, keeping his speed slow and easy, wanting to take it all in. His hands find Link’s thighs, spread him even wider, just so he can look down and watch the way his cock looks sinking into Link’s hole. It’s obscene, and it makes his stomach flip, heat licking down his spine while he watches.

It doesn’t take much more, the feeling of Link underneath him, the heat of him around his cock. His thrusts lose rhythm, a staccato of shallow movements, and he moans loudly when he comes, burying himself fully inside Link one more time.

He all but collapses on Link, burying his face in his sweaty neck, just wanting him close while he comes down. After a second, he feels fingers in his hair, running through the strands at the base of his neck, and Link hums contentedly.

“So, that was nice,” Link says, and Rhett can hear the grin in his voice. “And by ‘nice’ I mean I can’t feel my legs, but as soon as I do, we should do that again.”

Rhett hides his laugh into Link’s neck.

__

He takes Link camping.

That’s the first thing he does, as soon as he has the time off again; packs them up, loads everything into his jeep, and drives them to Joshua Tree. Back home, he camped all the time with friends and family, and it’s easily one of his absolute favorite things to do.

Something in him tells him Link is going to love it, too.

“So, we just sit here?” Link asks, and Rhett frowns.

Without saying anything, he grabs Link’s hand, pulls him up with a, “I’ll show you.”

He ignores Link’s questions, leads him through a few rock formations to find one that he knows they’ll be able to climb safely, and turns around to tell him, “Climb up.”

It takes a few tries, and Link scrapes his knee once, whining to Rhett about it. “Just, hush, Link,” Rhett says, laughing a little. “Climb the rock.”

“I’m trying, man!” he says. The third time he tries, he gets his footing right, and manages to pull himself up. Rhett spots him, putting his hands on Link’s butt to make sure he doesn’t fall, wiggling his eyebrows when he gets a look from over Link’s shoulder. “Idiot,” Link says fondly.

It takes Rhett a significantly smaller amount of time and whining to get up the rock. And once they’re there, Link turns to look at him as if to say ‘now what?’ so Rhett sits down, patting the area next to him.

It’s a good spot, a good view ahead of them, and as soon as Link is sitting next to him, he points. “Look,” he says.

The moon is big and bright, not quite full, and Link lets out a soft gasp. Rhett waits a beat, smiles widely when Link lies down on his back, arms pillowing his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the stars like this,” he says. “If I still had my magic, I’d steal one.”

“I’ll get you one,” Rhett tells him, lying back with him. When Link looks at him questioningly, he laughs a little bit. “There’s a website you can buy stars at, and you get to name it and stuff. They give you the coordinates and you can go look at it. I’ll get you one, and we can get a telescope to come look at it.”

Link sits up for a second, legs splayed out in front of him, and looks over at Rhett with a look he can’t make out on his face.

“I love you,” Link says, and Rhett tries very hard not to get teary-eyed.

It doesn’t work, but he swallows the lump in his throat down before he starts actually crying.

He says, “I love you, too.”

Link lies back down, but scoots closer to Rhett this time, and they watch the stars together.

Or, well, Link watches the stars.

Rhett watches Link.

But this is exactly where he’s supposed to be in life.

He’s supposed to be right here, next to Link, looking out at everything ahead of them.


End file.
